Marketing

Menara

Petronas Tower are definitely “must see”, but if you want to have real skyview to KL you must climb up to Menara, also known as KL Tower. Although slightly lower than Towers, Menera have better view to town center because it is built on a hill, and under the tower is jungle. The tower is 421 meter high, which makes it 4th biggest world tower, after CN Tower in Canada (553m), Ostankino Tower in Russia (537m) and Shangai Tower (468m). Its width is from 13 to 25 meters, and fundaments are 17 meters deep in the ground. There are 4 elevators, and if you are interested in specific physical torture you can take the stairs, but don’t cry after 205th stair that you are tired, because you passed just 10%. On the top of the tower there is a 6-storey head with maximal diameter of 50 meters and it has 7700 square meters. Tower is built from 1991 till 1995, in time when we were busier with destroying things than building, and it ate 45000 cubic meters of concrete and over 6500 tons of steel.
In any case, it is hard to resist not to climb up to the tower-head that dominates Kuala Lumpur…

This is look toward top over Shangri La Hotel. And this is how it looks like when you are looking down, again over Shangri La Hotel…

As thy built the tower in the forest on the hill, walking to its entrance is enjoying like walking through English Garden in Munich in May, except here you feel like in boiling pot, as the humidity is very high. Don’t go there in suit. However, it is definitely interesting to enter this green world just few steps from business city centre…

When you pass souvenir shop and restaurants in entering complex, fast elevators brings you to the top (top for visitors, there are several more storeys for antenna equipment), where you can get headphones and remote control, so you can go around the platform from 1st to 13th point, and listen on one of 13 languages (including Bulgarian) what is currently on your horizon. And closest you can is jungle under the tower, and little bit away park in front of Petronas Towers…

…then you can extend you view higher to a business center…

…and on the other side toward historical city centre. On this picture you can see Royal Selangor Club with big flag pole in the middle. In the background is National Mosque and big city park…

This is center magnified, for perfectionist…

For the end, this is big Parliament building…

…which is situated in the forest, so that crowd cannot interrupt delegates while they are brining new decisions that should be later confirmed by king. And you cannot interrupt his peace, because he is also hidden deep in Istan Negara...

King doesn’t have that title on lifetime basis. Malaysia have very specific compromise Constitution that divides state into nine regions that doesn’t have same status. Some of them, like Penang, Malacca, Sabah and Sarawak) are pure region with governor set by king. Other five regions have status of sultanate, with ruler from their royal family. These five sultans are electing Malaysian king between themselves on 5-year term, and the elected becomes Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong, or simple, king. Once he is elected, he will appoint governors in 4 regions that are not sultanates. Currently Malaysia have 12th king since independence, Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin ibni Almarhum Tuanku Syed Putra Jamalullail, which is also Raja of Perlis.
However, his significance is purely ceremonial, as the true power is in hand of prime minister, which is elected by parliament.